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If you live in the NL Central, that sentiment isn’t limited to October. It’s perpetual. Being a fan in Cincinnati, St. Louis, Milwaukee or Pittsburgh means never needing to apologize for finishing 2nd.

The Cubs are very good, very young, very wealthy and very likely to own the division a very long time. That leaves the Reds and the rest looking like the Jamaican Olympic bobsled team.

Dick Williams and Bryan Price don’t quite see it that way, maybe because if they did, going to work every day wouldn’t be so pleasant. When you’re in the Reds' situation – they finished a mere 35.5 games behind the new champs – you operate with blinders. All you can do is all you can do.

“We have our process. All we can do is believe in it,’’ Williams said.

He takes heart in some numbers, not too distant. Between 2010 and 2014, the Reds were 60-28 against the Cubs. “We were running over them then like they’re running over us now,’’ Price said.

The Reds did it then, they can do it. . . now?

Of course not. Williams’ point was, baseball is cyclical. It’s a fair point, but it’s kind of hard to see at present.

“They play under the same set of circumstances as everyone else,’’ said Price. “Thirty games in the spring, 162 after that. Injuries can really affect your ability to compete at the highest level. We’re all at the mercy of good health and reliable performance.’’

Williams looks at what the Cubs have done and seeks comparables. You reel off the incredible list of young, cheap Cubs stars, Williams says, “We’re hoping to create a young core like that. If (we) do, we can go out and get the pitching. People are starting to figure out the recipe. Everybody can read cookbooks. Not everybody can make it happen.’’

If the Reds can whip up an entree of Rizzos, Bryants, Russells and Schwarbers, the guy who did all the Reds player statues will have to make one of Dick Williams. The job is that daunting.

Numbers bore but enlighten. Kris Bryant, Addison Russell, Kyle Schwarber and Javier Baez will make roughly $3 million next year. Combined. The Cubs have four of their five starting pitchers under contract. Including NL ERA champ Kyle Hendricks, who made all of $541,000 this year. That’s only $17.5 million less than Homer Bailey.

The Cubs Everyday Eight was the fifth-youngest in the game in 2016. None was older than 26. It’s enough to make you weep.

Wrigley Field was a cash cow before the Cubs got good. The area around Wrigley mostly belongs to the Cubs. It’s a veritable CubWorld that won’t be touched by revenue sharing. The team plans to have its own regional TV network by 2020. Ask the Dodgers and Yankees how sweet that is.

Williams warned me about the Cubs nearly three years ago, some two years after they’d hired boy-genius Theo Epstein to run the baseball operation. I scoffed. It was the Cubs. They’d screw it up.

They didn’t. Epstein encored the show he debuted with the Red Sox. I asked Williams if Epstein’s 2011 hiring was his personal “uh-oh’’ moment. He said no, the uh-ohs happened when Epstein cut payroll three years in a row, between 2011 and 2014.

“Watching that made me very nervous,’’ said Williams. “I knew the capacity of the Cubs was to spend way in excess of that. I knew they were investing in the future, planning something big.’’

That brings up another Cubs fallacy: The “lovable losers’’ image. The Cubs lost not because they were lovable. They lost, year after decade, because they had stupid people running things. They knew they could open Wrigley and sell two million tickets winning 75 games a year. So they did. As Williams noted, “It’s not like the resources weren’t there in the past.’’

They sat on the goldmine and collected the interest, never thinking that a lot more gold rested right beneath their feet. Once they got smart, well. . . it became what’s-the-use time.

The last couple years, the Cubs “weren’t trading prospects to get prospects,’’ said Williams. “They were using their money to sign pitchers. That’s a game that’s harder and riskier for us to play.’’

The Reds will be playing against their own potential for the foreseeable future. So will the rest of the Central division. If that’s any consolation. The erstwhile Losers are settling in for a good, long run. The rest of us love the wild card, now more than ever.